‘Night of Horrors’: LA’s Chinese massacre of 1871 brought to the fore in new book
Lisa See’s novel Daughters of the Sun and Moon revisits the terrible events that saw around 500 people attack the city’s Chinese residents
Inside an unassuming room of the Huntington Library in Los Angeles, California, author Lisa See unfolds a stack of court records. At first glance, they look like a centuries-old love letter. The paper has yellowed from age, and the cursive is so ornate that the words are hard to make out.
“This is the case of the Wing Chun store,” See explains. “This is where a lot of the violence happened.”
The store was run by Sam Yuen, head of one of Los Angeles’ tongs, which were secret societies made up of men from China who often dabbled in illicit activities.
The Chinese massacre of 1871 started in the doorway.
Yuen’s lawsuit against the mayor was not the only record that told the story of what became known as the “Night of Horrors”. While researching her latest novel, Daughters of the Sun and Moon, See pored over documents to uncover the cultural mood of the city leading up to the night when a mob of roughly 500 white and Latino Angelenos attacked the city’s Chinese residents and its aftermath.